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-   -   Sleeping pilot (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/646962-sleeping-pilot.html)

Discorde 1st Jun 2022 15:16

There are apocryphal reports of VC10 flight crew (two pilots & F/E) all sleeping until woken by the Mach clacker (overspeed warning) triggered by the aircraft accelerating as weight reduced as fuel burnt (no autothrottle in cruise flight).

blind pew 1st Jun 2022 20:33

Iirc in the 70s a dc8 or 707 freighter overflew it’s west coast destination and were fortunately woken up by repeated selcal transmissions whilst they still had enough fuel after doing a 180 and getting to an airfield.
Fallen asleep in descent during my annual route check on the last sector back to Europe from the east coast and witnessed a few other colleagues accidentally falling asleep including a management pilot who had just given out about a fellow copilot doing same. FE and I commented and a few months later procédures were changed.
In both my first and last company management fiddled schedules so that we « accidentally » exceeded agreed flight time limitations. The first using airport standby for what was a scheduled operation to Nicosia and back at night; the other were Atlanta during winter where we regularly arrived an hour late west bound and another after the Alaskan volcano went bang and we routed Tokyo - Bombay - Zurich without a heavy crew..again with a management pilot.
Had à mate who managed to miss calling the Swiss when passing over the country…but not through sleeping.

B2N2 2nd Jun 2022 11:10

The Capt got sacked for falling asleep and not answering the radio and Pprune descends into duty times and here is was and I heard this debate.
Heres the obvious question; what was the FO doing while the Capt was asleep?

oceancrosser 2nd Jun 2022 11:15


Originally Posted by B2N2 (Post 11239490)
The Capt got sacked for falling asleep and not answering the radio and Pprune descends into duty times and here is was and I heard this debate.
Heres the obvious question; what was the FO doing while the Capt was asleep?

Capitan Speaking and F/O Sleeping? Those two were frequently mentioned in Straight & Level in Flight in days gone by…

B2N2 2nd Jun 2022 12:18


Originally Posted by oceancrosser (Post 11239496)
Capitan Speaking and F/O Sleeping? Those two were frequently mentioned in Straight & Level in Flight in days gone by…

Point being there’s information missing.
That was a 2 person crew and one got sacked for sleeping? FO turn him in?

Denti 2nd Jun 2022 12:57

AvHerald has usually more reliable information. Apparently the FO was taking an approved controlled rest on the flightdeck, and the captain later on tried to explain the whole situation by blaming "malfunctioning" com equipment. Which seems to be the reason for his dismissal rather than the falling asleep thing itself.

Twiglet1 2nd Jun 2022 17:14


Originally Posted by blimey (Post 11238672)
Any 24 hour layover will probably leave you hanging in the straps - you cannot control your sleep patterns by drawing the curtains and sticking earplugs in.

Nope not all. Most EU/UK - USA are day / night rotations but there are others e.g. freight night / day rotations where crews have 24-30hrs rest. They arrive have a few hours kip, get up then have a full EU/UK local night rest then an immediate departure.
For MXP-JFK 10.30 + FDP clearly ATA have loads of money to buy new A350 and a nice shiny colour scheme but not have gone low cost on the manning level.

RichardJones 2nd Jun 2022 19:06

Going from a 3, to a 2 person cockpit was a bad move, as far as safety goes. However we must never let safety get in the way of profits. Corporate greed, nothing less.

CDRW 6th Jun 2022 05:00


Originally Posted by Bryan Kiing (Post 11237835)
IMHO inexcusable to fall asleep.How do I deal with it? I think to myself of all the $ effort and time I spent to get 'up front' and say to myself..all gone if I nod off...THAT scares me awake !

"what a crock of **** "

CDRW 6th Jun 2022 05:04


Originally Posted by HowardB (Post 11238131)
On trains you have a dead man's handle that stops the train if the driver doesn't respond. While stopping a plane is not possible (unless its fitted with the new emergency divert/land system), surely its not beyond the bounds of possibility that something to wake the crew could be installed on the flight deck to generate an alarm if it is not responded to?

There is...Pilot Response

the_stranger 6th Jun 2022 13:34


Originally Posted by CDRW (Post 11241504)
"what a crock of **** "

He must be a robot, android or super human who knows no fatigue, emotion or empathy.

​​​​​​

beachbumflyer 13th Jun 2022 12:36


Originally Posted by Check Airman (Post 11238147)
Speaking to friends at American, Delta, United, Atlas and Kalitta, they all operate flights that carry extra pilots. Obviously not every flight, but on some flights the airlines accept that legal doesn’t mean safe.

And the pilots at the US Legacies make more money. So what are the European airlines saving by not having another FO? Less than 0.01% of the flight cost? Just guessing.

parabellum 13th Jun 2022 13:29

Among foreign airlines Singapore Airlines can be counted as operating a crewing system very similar to that of Delta, always erring on the side of safety, certainly during the ten years I was a 747-400 captain with them.

FLCH 13th Jun 2022 16:38

At where I work we mostly have 3 man crews except a few destinations going across the Atlantic to Europe…..funny how those 2 man trips are always for pick up ;-)

brakedwell 13th Jun 2022 19:07

In the early nineties we used to fly from Munich to Los Angeles in a 767 with a two pilot crew. About 13 to 13.5 hours and I can vouch that I was not near the top of my performance when we arrived at LA in the early evening rush time. I was very pleased to retire not long after we flew these scheduledt flights.

Auxtank 13th Jun 2022 20:08

Yawn.

What are we talking about? - Oh, yeah, Pilot Fatigue.

Cool.

Wake me up if it gets more interesting.

I'm Knackered.

Got to do something about it.

Chronic Snoozer 14th Jun 2022 02:54


Originally Posted by brakedwell (Post 11245571)
In the early nineties we used to fly from Munich to Los Angeles in a 767 with a two pilot crew. About 13 to 13.5 hours and I can vouch that I was not near the top of my performance when we arrived at LA in the early evening rush time. I was very pleased to retire not long after we flew these scheduledt flights.

Extrapolate that to conclude that many, many thousands of flights have been flown with one or more crew members feeling the way you did and it's difficult not to reflect on how incredibly lucky we are that our "systems", ground and air, are reliable and safe.

Goth 14th Jun 2022 09:22


Originally Posted by HowardB (Post 11238131)
On trains you have a dead man's handle that stops the train if the driver doesn't respond. While stopping a plane is not possible (unless its fitted with the new emergency divert/land system), surely its not beyond the bounds of possibility that something to wake the crew could be installed on the flight deck to generate an alarm if it is not responded to?

There's been a fair bit of discussion of this in the maritime sector - night watches in a warm, comfortable bridge in calm seas have a high risk of a lone watchkeeper falling asleep (or at least losing concentration) - this can be from fatigue, lack of stimulation or both. One of the solutions is to have a watch alarm that must be responded to on a certain timescale - if it isn't responded to it triggers an alarm elsewhere in the ship to alert the rest of the crew. A specific set of cabin intercom tones or an automated message might work for a plane?

capricorn23 17th Jun 2022 21:16


Originally Posted by brakedwell (Post 11245571)
In the early nineties we used to fly from Munich to Los Angeles in a 767 with a two pilot crew. About 13 to 13.5 hours and I can vouch that I was not near the top of my performance when we arrived at LA in the early evening rush time. I was very pleased to retire not long after we flew these scheduledt flights.

Me too... Lauda Air?

Dea Certe 20th Jun 2022 21:18

I would hope the Purser or #1 would be doing periodic checks to see if coffee, food or leg stretch might be wanted. This should be discussed in the crew briefing. Captain and flight deck crew should be doing group briefings with cabin crew so everyone gets to meet and have a common strategy in place for the trip. It’s easy to get complacent and a proper crew preflight briefing is important to safety. Even just 5-7 minutes can solve issues before they start.


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